


as the light comes on

by itskonoe



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: Character Study, Introspection, M/M, Nezumi PoV, Rekindled love, Reunions, would it even be a itskonoe fic it it wasnt tagged introspection and character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:02:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24811258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itskonoe/pseuds/itskonoe
Summary: There’s this hushed, meek part of him that admits he was hoping things would be different.A part of him fancied his return like slipping on a pair of well worn shoes, like the easy turn of pages from a well loved book. Because between each mismatched encounter there’s a knowing there, the lingering of a history neither one can shuck, and it amounts to a far bigger picture than the bumbling, graceless shapes they’ve been moving in these past few days.Yet another bigger, truer part of him knows it was a foolish, airheaded thing to even think at all.
Relationships: Nezumi/Shion (No. 6)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 83





	as the light comes on

**Author's Note:**

> here's a playlist inspired by this fic you can listen on [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ImedKO37Hu9GMFOPOINxP?si=YxT__LV8SGemTEZknlvR1w/)

They’re squeezed into a bar behind the theatre when Nezumi sees him again. 

“Such a wise head on such young shoulders.” The TV reporter comments. Nezumi stifles a laugh, sentiment misplacing itself at the corners of his lips. The interviewee becomes flustered, bashful.

He smiles.

“I once knew someone who would tell you otherwise.” He says and glances at the camera.

Nezumi flinches. It’s the touch of a flame as their eyes meet on the screen- and he feels it again: that new old thing. The feeling that ignites like a match, crackles in his chest, the one that burns from the inside out. It closes his throat as it smokes and he washes the embers in his drink and he is warm all over. 

It’s closing night and he is bored; has been bored for a while now.

He glances at the television. Again and back. The channel changes and he stands, tuts.

The cast wave and hoot and clap his back and kiss his cheek and slur their goodbyes.

And he leaves.

  
  
  
  
  


He decides to wait in No.6 for three days before, well-- before. 

And he watches. 

He’s near beside himself by the end of the third. 

It’s all so _normal_. 

Everything is just so _boring_ and _mundane_ and each day of utter drivel fades into the next so ordinarily and routinely that he has to laugh; because if anyone could make rebuilding a home in the gouged belly of a beast appear genuinely normal, it had to be him. 

  
  
  
  
  


He doesn’t have a plan when the time comes.

_foolish, careless_ he first thinks. 

It’s early morning when he kicks his legs over the balcony’s railings and slips through the open window. How easy it had been. 

Yet _simple, inviting_ he realises, settled in the dark, gentle exhales tickling his face. 

He lays on the edge of the single mattress with a deliberate stillness, careful not to disturb its occupant.

He’s become a foreigner to the way his own breath sounds in tandem with anothers. Yet it’s an all too familiar feeling, this. This proximity, this breath, the books on the shelves, the bird song outside, this worn feeling in his bones. He’d never allowed himself the luxury of settling into it before. 

Slipping on the false hope of concepts like _security_ and _safety_ were once akin to laying your throat on the blade before it had even been drawn. It was once a mantra of survival and yet it dawns on him that he scarcely remembers the last time he held a weapon in earnest. 

He hears as much as he feels the breath against his upper lip hitch, and two pairs of eyes meet in the dark. This time he does not flinch. 

Shion smiles. 

“Oh, good.” He whispers. 

And then falls back to sleep. 

  
  
  
  
  


Shion asks Nezumi how he likes his eggs in the morning and fails to catch the implication. 

But he also asks about his coffee, his rice, how hot he has his miso soup, which seat he would prefer and doesn’t give Nezumi much chance to poke fun at him about it all. 

He unpacks and Shion can’t help but hover. 

They go sightseeing and Shion is a jackhammer to the quiet streets. Nezumi replies with affirmative hums and nods when Shion gives him a chance. He doesn’t tell Shion he’d seen it all on his arrival.

They decide on eating out on the way back and Shion is near neurotic about Nezumi’s enjoyment of the menu. 

None of Shion’s behaviour was unexpected, really, but Nezumi never foresaw taking a piss to become such a sanctuary from it.

But Shion hasn’t touched him even once. 

The restraint would be almost impressive if it wasn’t _completely_ infuriating. 

Yet his eyes always find him. 

They’re fixed in this unshakeable, scrutinizing way and when he catches it it ruddies Nezumi right down to his bones in a flush of heat and guilt and embarrassment and fear and he thinks _after everything, what do you think of me, Shion._

  
  
  
  
  
  


Shion manages to take a few days off work before the office is begging him to return. 

He apologises over and over and over again until Nezumi jokes he won’t disappear if they’re not joined at the hip for once. He expects something witty or flustered or even stupid in return but Shion simply pauses, nods, and closes the door before Nezumi can reply. 

Almost everything happens in the way he predicted; the attentiveness, Karan’s cooking, the snub way Rikiga regards him, Inukashi’s feigned indifference, Shionn’s lack of interest in anything that wasn’t the pastry in his mouth. 

Yet this clumsy, stiff way he and Shion move around each other is… new. 

They’re like two puzzle pieces that keep locking in all the wrong places. All elbows and knees and fumbling toes when they come into contact; misplaced jokes, the accommodating laughter, those silences they rush to fill. 

Not to mention the _agony_ of the awkward, unspoken tension every time they say goodnight.

Long after Shion closes his bedroom door and Nezumi retreats to the futon in Shion’s home office, he scowls at the ceiling. In the quiet of solitude, in the knowledge that he is alone, Nezumi lets out a sigh. He’s frustrated but with no real direction.

There’s this hushed, meek part of him that admits he was hoping things would be different. 

A part of him fancied his return like slipping on a pair of well worn shoes, like the easy turn of pages from a well loved book. Because between each mismatched encounter there’s a knowing there, the lingering of a history neither one can shuck, and it amounts to a far bigger picture than the bumbling, graceless shapes they’ve been moving in these past few days. 

Yet another bigger, truer part of him knows it was a foolish, airheaded thing to even think at all. 

He sulks in the dark until his eyes grow tired as he is fed up and he lets himself drift off no more resolved than when he started. 

At night he dreams of hands on his and an endless, spreading warmth against him.

  
  
  
  
  


He finds the key to the bunker without much fanfare as Shion keeps a very tidy office. 

Inside, the room is cool. The walls have been stripped and replastered. There is a thermostat, and electricity that works everytime he flicks the light switch. The water runs hot. There are so, so many books.

He sits on the mattress and it isn’t akin to a concrete slab. 

_this is a home,_ he thinks, _or could be, at least_

He swallows thickly at the prospect. 

A restlessness scratches up inside him, something clotted in a mourning not unlike grief. Yearning, maybe. He looks at the missing books amongst the collection, the ones he knows sits on Shion’s shelves at home, thinks back to a time when they were here. 

He thinks. 

When he returns he slips the key back into the draw while Shion makes them both dinner. 

He doesn’t bring it up. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


At night, a shadow haunts the office door. 

The changing darkness against his eyelids wakes him every time. 

It lingers under the hallway light, ghosting a little. A limbo that feels more like hours than minutes passes before it drifts away again, only to return an unpredictable number of nights later. 

One night, Nezumi leaves the door ajar. 

_well?_ he thinks as the apparition hesitates, falters in their routine. 

He wallows in his disappointment well after the sound of Shion’s bedroom door softly shutting reaches him. 

  
  
  
  
  


It’s not long before he finds work again in the city. 

This director is good, the actors surprise him and he comes back after rehearsal more bruised and dirtied than when he left. 

This is penance, he supposes, for the lazy arrogance he once draped around the stage with. He’s no self conscious fool; he’s a natural talent, for sure. But his travels have shown it’s like a broom without bristles compared to a trained actor. 

For the first time the spotlight favours another, and Nezumi loathes it.

On a particularly sore night Shion asks him what kind of play it is with the same keen, prying tone that still makes Nezumi feel under more scrutiny than the question itself carries. Shion pouts when he tells him to keep his nose out, untying his shoes on the doorstep.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to disturb a thespian at rest?”

“Yes,” Shion says plainly, “You. Whenever I would ask you to peel the potatoes for dinner.”

“Ah, so your ears do work. You’re just _choosing_ not to use them, then.” 

He’s spiteful when he bites at his open curiosity and shame festers when Shion grows quiet. Being in this parody of No.6 fills him full of strife and this quick tongue, the misplaced anger, all makes him feel like a teenager again. 

“I looked you up, you know.” 

“Huh?” Nezumi asks. 

“Online. When you were gone, I looked you up. You were performing in No.4. It was only a photo, but... there you were.” 

Their eyes meet but Shion’s gaze is somewhere far off. Boring down into a time Nezumi wasn’t there to witness firsthand.

“You looked happy, really happy.” Shion says, “You weren’t smiling but I know you were... You were really happy.”

His voice is soft in a way that makes Nezumi cringe, scolded by the sincerity. It frustrates him; how Shion can look at him, through him and past him, all at once. 

Even though he’s here now, it doesn’t explain anything of the time he wasn’t. It’s not the first time since his return Shion has slipped away from right in front of him when he talks of the past, unreachable. But this, this spiritless recollection isn’t anything like he’d seen before. 

He still hasn’t told Shion anything of his time away. And he knows how Shion wants to know, aches to know. Deserves to know. He knows how Shion looks at the time between his leaving and his coming back like two pages of a book molded together.

Nezumi knows how it scares him. He left to figure himself out, find out what the world had to offer beyond fighting and dying and starving for revenge. And even still, after all this time, Nezumi still doesn’t have any answers to give him. The world will take a lifetime to wrangle for its worth, he knows this for sure. 

So why did he come back at all? 

And here, in the doorway, with one shoe off, his head like a frayed knot, sweaty and hungry and in need of a shower... it’s not the right time to find those answers. 

“Nosey.” 

Is all he says instead, unable to manage much else, and finishes untying his shoes.

  
  
  
  
  
  


It never seems to be the right time. 

After a while he takes himself back to the bunker again, determined to put some distance between Shion and the bristling, horned way he’s taken to stalking around in. 

Buried underground with the dirt and must and the dust mite nostalgia it settles him, somewhat. 

Nezumi isn’t a fool. He knows _who_ he’s back here for. 

But he’s wound like a knot, tight in the chest every time he wakes because, regardless of getting what he wants, what he’s come back to still isn’t _right_. 

It’s ridiculous to expect things to stay unchanged. Time clings to people in a vice grip and threatens to break them until all they can do is move along with it. Not even he can pretend to be the same sixteen year old he was before; speaking words he couldn’t truly understand the weight of, the one always at the elbow brush of survival. Can’t pretend he even wants to be. 

It’s an effigy, really, the past. 

In its lingering, withering permanency it clings and clings and begs to be filled, begs to be lived like the present, _loved_ like the present. He realises this now, surrounded by the artifacts of a life once lived; this room, this quiet, this appetite for something more than nostalgia that he can’t ignore.

Once, their world was a sore on the face of the Earth- tomorrow unpromised- softness the luxury of the deadman. To want anything more than to open his eyes again the next day was laughable.

And then there is now. 

Now there is calm. There is safety. There is food and a warm bed to fall into each night. There are eyes that he can’t help but meet. Ones he wants to climb into when they go bleary and deserted to shake and say ‘ _look! look! i'm here now!_ ’ to when they’re searching for something no longer lost.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They fall into routine. 

Between work they meet in the early mornings and late evenings. It’s the quiet chatter over coffee, the mundanity of their hours apart, the way they stay up later and longer, just to talk, when things become less fumbling. 

One day he finds Shion waiting outside the house, keys forgotten.

“A thousand apologies, your Highness. My fellow jesters and I were summoned to entertain the court until the sun set over the western eve.” He says, unlocking the door. “Though I have to wonder how you ever survived without me like this.” 

Shion begins explaining something about neighbours with spare keys, and Nezumi bites back the impulse to chastise his naivety. His faith in the better nature of people is still something Nezumi hasn’t been able to join him on. 

“You know,” He says instead, “I stayed in the city for a couple of days before I came and found you.” 

He’d always regarded No.6 as something unchangeable. An unyielding reminder of a starved past, fraught in brutality. To be crushed, shattered beyond recognition. The people within its walls either too complicite or too ignorant to avoid the same fate. 

“I needed to figure out if I was coming back to put a knife to your throat or not- had to see what kind of world you’d created before I announced myself.” 

Destroying No.6 had been a desire that guided him, grew him, warped him into the shape he’d become; bruised, uncompromising, hungry. All of which became incompatible with a life less desperate when his goal was finally met. 

“And how did you find it?” Shion asks, curiously. 

And Nezumi considers what he’s observed; the workers building houses, the librarys full of people, the hospitals with wide open doors, the children running and falling and laughing and doing it all over and over and over again. He considers his own adolescence, weaned on retribution. 

“Completely, totally unremarkable.” He decides. 

Shion laughs this beautiful, sentimental sound.

“I’ll be sure to let the committee know!”

  
  
  
  
  


Nezumi’s return to the stage is only a month after rehearsals begin. 

They play in the market, on a stage the troop made the day before. 

The first performance is a simple enough routine; one master (a materialistic man) sends another a message about the secretly arranged marriage of his daughter, and his servant (an easily confused fool) takes it to the daughter instead. Chaos ensues when the daughter’s lover (another simpleton) believes the servant to be the suitor in question and challenges him to a variety of ridiculous, comedic physical challenges to prove who is the most worthy of the daughter’s affection. In the end it is fruitless, as upon the master’s discovery of these men fighting he puts a stop to the wedding to consider _raising_ her dowry instead. 

Nezumi plays the lover. 

The ensemble rotates several more routines throughout the late afternoon; stories of love and betrayal each as whimsical as the last, and Nezumi is exhausted by the early evening curtain call.

Shion is agape the whole way through.

“Why were you and the daughter the only actors without a mask?” He asks, brimming with delight.

Shionn’s tired head lolls on his shoulders as they carry him back home, exhausted from watching the show. He expects that Inukashi will no more than likely say it was Nezumi’s performance that put him to sleep, and the two will wake him as they trade insults on the doorstep. 

“Who would want to cover a face like this?” Nezumi replies, teasingly. “It’s a crowd pleaser.” 

“You didn’t play a woman, either.” He comments. 

“I could hardly upstage our leading lady on my first show back.” 

“You were beautiful.” Shion says, determined, “Without Eve. You were still very beautiful.”

The name stirs memories long since stored away in Nezumi. The dust of the old theatre, the creaking boards of the stage, a hundred voices clinging onto that one syllable, over and over again. His lungs fill with breath-- that dormant name working him like a reflex-- a deep-rooted song threatening to bloom from within. _eve, eve, eve!--_

Nezumi scoffs, “I don’t know where you think flattery will get you- there’s no after show private party for you to seduce your way into.”

“Sedu-? I mean it, you really were!” Shion tries again, flustered. He lifts Shionn a bit higher on his back, the weight of his little body doubling as he becomes more boneless in slumber. 

After a silence Nezumi feels Shion’s eyes return to him. 

“You really are _beautiful_ , Nezumi.” 

He speaks it feverishly, as though it’s a string of words never been fashioned before, language brought together for the first time in a remarkable new way, as though they’re words Nezumi hasn’t heard a thousand times before.

_Beautiful_ he says, like a newborn word. Stainless of history, like humanity hadn’t ran it’s filthy little hands all over it for decades, jading it with each repetition, _beautiful_ , relearnt a new as he says it like, _beautiful_ , and for a moment it almost is. The sincerity is scorching. The kind that makes him wince, too raw, too intense to confront directly. 

“You’ll wake Shionn if you’re any louder.” Nezumi says, reddening for the first time he can ever remember. “Don’t overdo it.”

“Okay,” He says, but his smile doesn’t falter.   
  


They’re nestled in the living room when he reaches out.

Nezumi reads his notes from an old rehearsal and Shion reads for pleasure. 

_No xit_ or, whatever it is, is a play he has never seen before, and Shion has the title unknowing tucked under his thumb. He’s too invested to notice the way Nezumi stares, and Nezumi knows this because after all this time Shion is still _terrible_ at being covert. 

Sat here, swimming in the honey light of the lamp and the savoury taste of dinner lingering, he is no stranger to this feeling. A yawn stretches through him in a long, aching way and he goes boneless all over. Content. Muscles worked in all the right ways. 

Shion slips him a little smile before returning to his book, the warmth of the light melding his features into something soft, hair soaked in its buttery glow. And Nezumi aches to touch it. 

It’s for a brief, near unnoticeable moment that time rewinds itself as Nezumi reaches over. 

For a blink they’re sixteen again, frigid and playful and fraught with nerves. He feels the breath in Shion shudder out of him, tentative to the touch of the hand carding loosely through his hair. Nezumi hushes a smile.

_ah_ , he thinks, quietly, in a relief that spills from the roots deep inside himself, _not everything has to change_.

And then, as quickly as it came, he lets his hand fall away, time ticking on steadily as though it hadn’t just rewritten itself only, only for them.   
  
  
  


“-and while they’re doing an incredible job-” 

“They’ve got their heads up their asses?”

“No, they’re just-”

“Useless?”

“ _Patronising_.” Shion says, and with a smile, “Not that it’s anything I’m not used to.”

“I don’t know what you’re implying, _Your Majesty_.” Nezumi says and reclines in the kitchen chair. 

It’s the third day the team from No.3 has been in the city. From the schedule alone they knew it’d be busy, but neither predicted how hectic it has truly become. Nezumi takes over dinner duties as Shion works later and later. He ignores how painfully domestic it is every time Shion softens as he comes into the kitchen, the tension of work melting as he peers over Nezumi’s shoulder at whatever’s on the stove. 

“What ever would I have to imply?” Shion counters, before his expression settles into something more serious. “Anyways, I’m thankful. Without the other cities we wouldn’t be half as far along in the rebuild. No.3’s investment into their infrastructure really shows, it’s incredible they’re willing to work with us on this project. However, their intervention can feel more like parenting than partnership, especially when you’re the youngest head at the table.” 

Nezumi laughs, “I thought surely you’d look the part with all the old geezers.” 

“Ha.” Shion says and kicks Nezumi’s chair leg. 

“Have you ever been there?” Nezumi asks, unphased by the assault under the table, “To No.3?”

“Not in person, no.” 

“Then how would you know.” He says, leaning forward over his arms crossed on the table. “How would you know if they’re not just selling a dream.” 

“Hm.” Shion says, and drinks from his glass. 

“They’re honest about their own shortcomings.” He decides, “Where they’ve made the wrong choices or failed to deliver results they’re transparent about it, but they also pass that knowledge on. A lot of the things they’ve discussed with us are these problems, but equally as important is how they’ve rectified them. And I learnt that lesson from Rou.”

His name takes Nezumi by surprise. 

“He owned his mistakes and used them to help us. I’ll never forget that. And I won't let anything I learnt from that time go to waste, either. I’ll keep learning from more people and trusting their guidance as long as I can.” He says, and with a smile, “Even if they do have their heads up their asses.”

Nezumi scoffs, fond like, and uncrosses his arms. Shion will never not surprise him. 

“That’s no way for a bureaucrat to talk.”  
  
  
  


They talk in the office doorway long after saying goodnight more often than not. 

Between the yawns that bleed through conversations and the failed promises of leaving after just ‘one last thing’ they almost manage to make it to bed at a reasonable hour. By the time Nezumi’s back meets the futon he can still feel the imprint of the doorway from leaning on it for so long. 

“Are you alright, here?” Shion asks one night, bleary eyes peering into the darkness over Nezumi’s shoulder. “It doesn’t get too cold or anything, I mean.” 

He pretends he’s never noticed how his toes freeze like ice blocks most nights when he shrugs and reassures Shion, who looks apprehensive despite it. 

“Because you don’t have to stay here- in here, I mean. I thought maybe you would want the privacy but you can sleep anywhere if you’re not happy in here.” He says with a kind of pre-rehearsed rush Nezumi can’t help but pick up on. “Wherever you want, really.” 

There’s a hopefulness in Shion’s eyes that Nezumi doesn’t know what to do with. Something loaded and wild and badly kept from pouring out all over this very deliberately asked question and it sends a bolt of electrified _terror_ directly through his skull in a way he hadn’t dealt with for a very long time. 

“Uh,” He tries, ugly and artless. 

Shion yawns through a smile and shakes his head, “Just let me know if I can help,” He says afterwards, ready to turn in. 

Before he leaves, Shion steps forward with that same tired smile and leans in, his breath ghosting over Nezumi’s lips just like on the night of their reunion, 

And he kisses his cheek.

“Goodnight, Nezumi.” He says when he pulls back, softly as the brush of his lips against Nezumi’s skin. 

“Night, Shion.” Nezumi replies, and his heart doesn’t stop thumping.

  
  


  
  


City Hall is a pretty dull place to people watch Nezumi decides.

It’s not long before he heads into the foyer to sweet talk the receptionist into letting him into Shion’s office. 

He takes a seat in Shion’s cubicle and watches him and his colleagues through the open conference room door, where he’s currently held up in a meeting. They all laugh and cross something off a white board. 

Shion’s desk is more cluttered than the one in his home office- more coffee stains, more post it notes. He gives the mouse a wiggle and tuts when the login screen appears. The desk draws are empty of any entertainment; only paperwork and hoarded office supplies. 

Nezumi props up his feet on the desk and watches Shion through the doorway.

He looks the part here in his smart casual, working, surrounded by an entourage of other do gooders. Every pair of eyes watch attentively as he reads from a paper in hand. _‘Such a wise head on such young shoulders’_ Nezumi thinks, smiles, and the mockery of it all comes completely undone. 

It’s not just that Shion looks the part, but he _is_ the part. A massive part, he realises, watching the hopeful faces of Shion’s coworkers. They’re inspired, motivated, lapping up his words like a drought and Nezumi realises that for all the time he’s spent watching, he’d failed to see Shion, really, truly until now. 

Shion pauses for questions and nods in agreement with the speakers, who only grow more animated at his encouragement. 

It’s not wrong what the interviewer had to say. 

It scares him, a bit, to be reminded of the power Shion has. Nezumi isn’t the only one to have had his life rearranged from under his nose. Just looking around No.6 can reassure that much. To think of the quantity of lives Shion’s had influence on is daunting. Even after leaving, Nezumi could barely avoid Shion’s name from following him- it’s not everyday someone comes along and changes the world. 

Yet for all his time spent here agonising over his past, his mistakes, his feelings- he’d forgotten to consider Shion past how he fits into Nezumi’s world. 

Shion’s life wasn’t put on hold the moment Nezumi decided to stop existing in it. 

He’s had his own fair share of bullshit to deal with, undeniably. And unlike Nezumi’s never-look-back keep-moving-forward brand of coping, Shion’s clearly been confronting his demons. He’s grown, even if Nezumi is still the tallest.

It puts into perspective how patient Shion has been with Nezumi now; like waiting for some feral thing that found its way into his house to stop growling every time he approaches, stop licking at its wounds long enough to get some real help. It’d be impressive how long he’s spent putting off processing everything if it weren’t so embarrassing.

It was an ultimatum Shion gave him the other night. Like opening the door for a cat that can’t stop pawing at it. And now they’re standing in the doorway, stood over the same question as always; 

‘Are you coming or going?’

  
  
  
  
  
  


It’s awfully late when they begin their hallway routine. 

“Your taste in the arts still leaves much to be desired.” Nezumi says as they reach the office door. He leans on the wall, assuming the usual position that’ll eventually dead arm him into calling it a night.

“I’m not in charge of what films they put on TV, Nezumi.” Shion replies, too tired for much of a fight.

Nezumi smirks, “Oh? So there’s actually a committee you’re not on then?” 

Shion half heartedly kicks his leg with a little more energy than he thought he had, laughing quietly. 

“You hardly have the energy to be starting fights at this hour.” Nezumi says, pushing Shion’s leg away with his own foot. “I can’t believe you’d treat your citizens with such cruelty, Your Highness.” 

“You’re not even a citizen here.” Shion replies. He playfully tries to push Nezumi off balance again but he’s too fast. 

“I could be.” Nezumi says. 

Shion looks up at him. 

“You could be.” He repeats.

“Maybe.” Nezumi says. His mouth dries all of a sudden, heart crawling up into his throat. 

He shrugs, more casually than he feels, and opens the office door he’s been leaning next to. 

“Food for thought.” He says and then, “Well, I’m going to bed.” 

“Yeah,” Shion starts.

“Goodnight then, Nezumi.” He says.

“Night, Shion.” He replies, gives Shion a nod. 

He closes himself in the darkness of the office and he stands there. 

He listens to Shion walking down the hall and going into his bedroom, listens for the sound of the closing door and his eyes become accustomed to the dark. He feels the cold start to burrow into him, calm his beating heart, cool it, slow it to nothing. 

It’s so cold in this room. 

It’s always been so, so cold in this room. 

_fuck it_ , he thinks, and opens the door to walk down the hall. 

“Actually,” He says when Shion opens his bedroom door, confused, “I was thinking about your offer.” 

“Yeah?” Shion says, as Nezumi steps forward.

“Yeah,” Nezumi repeats, “There is somewhere I’d rather spend the night.” 

And he kisses him. 

When Shion kisses him back, grips him, he anchors himself to Nezumi in this unshakable way that reaches right down into the marrow of him and clings onto his very being. Nezumi feels the fire that brought him here engulf them both in it’s blaze. 

They’re so hot. Both of them burning fingerprints into the others skin, mapping out paths once so well walked, bruising lips and clawing at clothes as they stumble backwards. It’s familiar and foreign and clumsy and full with desperation to blur the lines between their differences, themselves, their bodies, their voices. There are tears but they’re not sure who they’re from. They’re puzzle pieced together and of course they’re a fit. A perfect fit.

It’s the new and the old rutting at the hip, the loved and the loveless. It’s against his nature to love but God if this isn't the most natural thing he’s ever done. Shion holds his face and they move together and he moans and he is all things bright and brilliant and warm warm warm.

It’s the push at the pull, and moving when they should be still, and still when they should be loving, and loving when they should be fucking- it’s all so out of sync, like all of this has been, and they have wasted so much _time_. 

Nezumi knows that now, here, in this moment, he’s done enough learning about the world and art and books and big open stretches to wander through entity for, because now he has this warm and loving thing laid at his chest, and while it is utterly utterly terrifying it’s not in the same ways he once feared.

Shion whispers to him in the dark where nothing is terrifying at all, this proximity, this early hour, this boy tucked under his chin, the hand pressed against his chest, over his heart. The arm around his waist. The breath on his collar bone. None of this scares him. 

It’s the thought of losing it. 

It hurt to leave Shion and it would hurt again, worst this time. But he knows he has feet lost in different directions, straddling a multitude of wants and none of them align. He buries his face into Shion’s hair, his soft, soft hair, and tries to stifle his wants into something less mangled, something more manageable. 

He breathes deeply, greedily, and holds this moment deep down inside of him. 

  
  
  
  
  


Nezumi wakes before Shion as usual. 

He can hardly complain of the cold now, he thinks, sharing both pillow and blanket as the morning sun caresses over his back, his back shielding Shion’s face from the light. 

His eyes follow the scar that snakes across Shion’s face, tucks behind his ear, and slithers out of view. He wants to touch, follow where it goes, trace again the places his hands returned to unquestionably when given the chance. 

He does, and Shion’s eyes open. He smiles, familiar. 

“Do you remember,” Nezumi begins, his thumb tracing the perfect line carved on Shion’s cheek, “What you said to me when I returned?” 

Shion smiles bigger, somehow. 

“I do.” He says. 

“You looked at me and you smiled and said ‘Oh good’,” Nezumi recounts, relaxing his arm between them and Shion laughs at Nezumi’s impression of himself, “and then you closed your eyes again and went back to sleep.” 

“Well,” Shion admits, unabashedly, “I thought I was having my favourite dream.” 

And it’s Nezumi’s turn to laugh now, because, of course. Of course.

“In that case,” He says, “Next time don’t let me stop you, Your Grace. I’m so sorry to have interrupted your slumber.”

Shion grabs Nezumi’s forearm laid bonelessly between them and gives it a squeeze.

“Don’t be- I’m still not sure if I’ve actually woken up from it yet.”

  
  
  
  
  


“I’ve been thinking,” Shion says suddenly one day in a tone that feels all too familiar to Nezumi. 

“That’s never a good thing.” He banters, but waits for Shion to finish. 

It’s been about a week since he’s moved out of the office. Nothing much has changed apart from the shared wardrobe, and the shared showers, and the micro amount of personal space Shion allots him when he’s feeling generous. 

“What if we both went to No.3?” He says and Nezumi pauses his pampering of Shion’s feet in his lap. 

“Oh?” He tries, unsure of where he’s going.

Shion nods. “It’s like what you said. How do I really know what’s out there if I haven’t seen it with my own eyes?” He sits up and crosses his legs on the sofa, still facing Nezumi but with momentum now, excited. 

“I’ve been invited before, you know. More than once! But I’ve always turned down the offer. Too worried about what was going on in No.6- What if something happened while I was gone? What if another emergency happened? What if-” 

“What if another deity unleashed her hellish brood upon the city?” Nezumi plays. 

“Exactly that.” Shion says, and calmer now, “But we have a good team here, good people who know what they’re doing, know the vision we’re striving towards. I know sooner or later I’ll have to step back and let new people take the reins. I can’t lead forever. And I know I can’t expect you to stay here forever, either. Happily.” 

Nezumi feels the familiar anxiety curdle his stomach at Shion’s words. It was foolish to pretend Shion isn’t as observant as he is, knows Nezumi better than he knows himself at times. Shion reaches for Nezumi’s hand and shuffles closer. 

“I know that you can’t talk about where you’ve been. I’ve tried enough already- not that I can promise I won’t again, though.” He says, grins at Nezumi and lays his head on his shoulder. Nezumi’s not sure if it’s for Shion’s benefit or his own that they’ve broken eye contact. 

“I feel like it’s because you’re not ready to have it become just a story. Just the past. When it all becomes memories it feels like it’s all come to an end. I felt that way for a long time about us, about all of it. I didn’t want it to just be memories, even if it’s a time I’ll always treasure. I didn’t want it to just be a story of what happened to me. I wanted it to keep happening. Some days I wanted it to happen all over again just to feel like it wasn’t all so far away.”

Nezumi feels like all the pieces of himself he could never put together into words have been laid out by Shion, here. Like he’s taken all his jagged edges and laid them out neatly into a blueprint of his anguish. It’s blinding, really, to have it shown to him so plainly. 

“I’m really happy you came back to me, Nezumi. I really am. But I know I can’t keep you here.”

Restless, Shion lifts his head again. Nezumi squeezes his hand and watches his face set with a mixture of determination, hopefulness. Love. It’s love that Shion looks at him with. 

“So if you can’t tell me about it, why don’t you show me?” Shion asks, “I’ll keep doing what I need to do for here, for No.6, and you’ll keep doing what you need to do for you. Together.” 

It’s so simple really. It always is with Shion. Everytime they come to a path that diverges in completely different directions he always finds a way to bring them together again. He’d forgotten this about Shion, how he’d move the Earth if it wouldn’t bend for him. It was always going to come to this sooner or later, it always has, but with Shion there has to be a third way. And there’s always another way. 

_what a fool_ , he thinks, _what a glorious fool_

“Okay.” Nezumi says.

Shion’s face is a picture. One Nezumi swears to never forget.

“I’ll show you.” He decides. 

And Nezumi promises that. He promises like a man at the foot of a shrine, promises like a boy who once swore to return and _did_ , promises like a fool in love.

**Author's Note:**

> i really came out of fandom hibernation for the first time in 3 years to post this huh?
> 
> [tumblr](http://its-konoe.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/its_konoe/)


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